Armani’s surprise attack on Wintour

Bemused fashionistas spent their lunch break in Milan today trying to digest what on earth Giorgio Armani was on about at a morning press conference when he dared to criticise the queen of fashion journalism, Anna Wintour.

Armani was supposed to be addressing the troops about an exhibition called Superheroes in New York this May, which he is co-chairing with Wintour.

Instead, with La Wintour present, and seeming to ramble, he said he couldn't understand why so many people disliked the American Vogue editor; he said he was "indifferent" to her - gasps from onlookers - before changing his mind and saying actually he liked her. He also suggested that she preferred French designers to Italians.

Armani is one of many designers, including John Galliano, Jean Paul Gaultier and Alexander McQueen, who will be represented in Superheroes, which explores the use of comic book imagery and symbolism in modern fashion. It opens at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in May - if the co-chairs are still talking.